The repetition

There was a guy in the train from Paris to Basel who had the annoying habit of repeating every sentence, every word at least three times. He said “the rich in France pay 75% taxes, that’s too much, that’s too much, that’s too much.” Then he asked his fellow travelers who he obviously knew a little: “What did you eat in Paris? What did you eat in Paris? What did you eat in Paris?”. And he continued with “my hotel was horrible, it was horrible, it had no light, it was horrible, it had no light, my hotel was horrible, it had no light.” I tried to keep him out by listening to Bach’s Goldberg Variations played by Glen Gould. Didn’t work. In a way, the repetition guy seemed nice. He was talking about French castles and he said that he bought books in Paris which weighted at least 10 kilograms, 10 kilograms, 10 kilograms. Gould played, and played, and played, didn’t help, maybe because he wasn’t doing repetitions, but variations.

We went to see the great Georges Braque review in the Grand Palais this afternoon. Braque did variations, never repetitions. Guitare et verre in several different variations. All beautiful.

I tried to silent the guy in repetition mode with the 36 variations of The People United Will Never Be Defeated by American composer Frederic Rzewski. Didn’t work either. The guy finally felt asleep over a Tintin comic (500 grams?). And then I remembered that I went over the weekend several times to the same café having the same drink I had last time, having the same drink I had last time, having the same drink I had last time.

#expobraque